New Releases Tuesday: The Best Books Out This Week

This one of the most anticipated books of the year and one I’ve been more than looking forward to. It’s also a book that really tells the publishing industry about itself. When June Hayward and Athena Liu graduated from Yale, they were meant to rise together. At least in June’s mind. Instead, Athena became the literary It Girl, and June stayed on the sidelines. But then June sees Athena die right in front of her and steals Athena’s manuscript. Once she edits the novel about the contributions of Chinese laborers during WWI, she passes it off as her own and is catapulted to book fame. She, a white woman, even gets a rebranding as Juniper Song and an ethnically ambiguous author picture. But she can’t shake the feeling that someone out there knows the truth, and she is down to do what she has to do to protect her secret.

Interestingly enough, the premise of someone pretending to be another race for clout in academia or publishing has actually happened. A couple times, I might add. I’m pretty sure more cases will be revealed, and I feel like there will be more of these scathing critiques of the publishing and academic fields by authors of color. And I’m ready to receive each and every last one of them.

Samantha Irby has a blog titled bitchesgottaeat, so you know any and everything by her will slap. And slap this one does. Much like in previous collections, Quietly Hostile has Irby getting into the nitty gritty of her life. She’s getting calls from Hollywood, tries therapy, and maybe likes things other people judge her for. She also may have some digestive issues…Her writing is seriously funny, while also having moments of insight and tenderness.

Mess, mess, mess, oh how I love thee. And so does Alex, a 22-year-old sex worker, who starts grifting in the wealthier circles of Long Island. At a party, she offends the older man she’s been seeing and he promptly gets her a ticket back to the city. But she’s not ready to go back, and decides to blend into a group of people vacationing for the summer while she waits to be welcomed back by her older suitor. When that particular façade is cracked, she drifts to another group, telling people what they want to hear as it suits her. She becomes a perpetual guest among the privileged, even as an initially distant danger becomes more and more palpable. It’s interesting to see a world of privilege shaken up by this walking ball of destruction.

Matthew Shindell, a National Air and Space Museum curator, tells the story of humanity’s fascination with Mars through the ages and across cultures. Because of its visibility and striking color, everyone from Mayan priests to modern scientists have sought to center the planet in some way in human life. In this book, Shindell explores the ways our curiosity and subsequent exploration of the planet has led us to understanding the rest of our world as well.

This fantastical anthology of 14 stories about trans and nonbinary teens has stories from editor g. haron davis, Emery Lee, Sonora Reyes, and others. There’s a nonbinary ferry person who walks between life and death, trans teens fighting against oppressive regimes, magical tales of revenge, excellent worldbuilding, and ancestral magic. The characters here learn to be true to themselves, even as they battle against prewritten narratives, some of which are self-imposed.

In this auto fictional account, Berest’s mother receives a curious postcard in 2003 in Paris. The front depicts the Opéra Garnier, but the back has the names of four of Berest’s ancestors who died at Auschwitz during WWII. Twenty years later, she thinks of the card again when her child tells her about the antisemitism at school. She enlists the help of family members, a private detective, a graphologist, and others to map out the fate of what really happened to her family.